You may have heard a few weeks ago that Oregon men's basketball won the CBI. Oh, what's the CBI, you ask? I have no clue, really. From what I gathered, it seemed like a tournament developed for teams not good enough for the NCAA tournament, nor the NIT? I haven't actually heard too many good things about the CBI in general, but that is neither here nor there. The point is, we won it! I've discovered winning is pretty cool under any circumstance. Luckily, my good friend Sarah is totally in with the bball crowd and she was on top of getting tickets and drug me along to the final 2 CBI games. I guess that'd be the semifinals, and the finals. The night of the finals we were pretty pumped to see how all would play out against the Creighton Bluejays. We met at my house and walked to Autzen to catch the shuttle to the new arena. Turns out, this night had many a strange incident in store for us.
We arrived to the game prior to tip off and we quickly found our seats. Not long after finding these seats, we were soon alerted to the fact that they were not actually our seats. The people who legitimately had claim to the seats were quick to point this out. By that point, however, the game had just begun and we could not find it within ourselves to climb over the row of people we would need to, to get to our seats. So, in looking around at the nearly 3,000 empty seats we picked another pair and sat down to settle in for the game. Not long after...you already know...someone came to inform us that we were in their seats. Okay, we decided, we should just suck it up and get to our seats that we actually bought and paid for. As we were nearing our seats, we lost heart, and just thought, well, we can probably sit in these seats. There was a set of 3 on the aisle and the man sitting with his children behind these seats encouraged us to sit there by saying, "These aren't our seats either, and we've been here the whole game, so it's probably fine." That was good enough reason for us. We hunkered down and settled in for the first half of the game. Nearing the end of the first half, a man-child looking thing (there’s no way I can possibly do his description justice, I will not even try) approached the aisle closest to where I was sitting. I did not want to make eye contact with this person fearing that if I did, he would, yet again, inform us that we were in his seats. Sadly, I made the mistake of glancing up and true to prediction he informed us that these were his seats. Quickly, he noticed the empty seat next to Sarah and assured us, that we could stay, he would just sit in the middle. This statement was accompanied with a vague gesture towards the open seat next to Sarah. Happy to oblige the man-child, we stood up to let him pass through to the available chair. Only now, awkwardly, none of us were moving. Sarah and I are stealing sideways glances at each other trying to figure out what's going on, when, you know who, informs Sarah she might want to pick up her Bingo cards which were under her seat. In a confused manner, she did as such, and again, we all stood paused, awkwardly, waiting for someone to make a move. Finally, Sarah, not knowing what else to do, thought, OH! I see, we're just going to move down one. As she stepped toward the seat next to her, the man-child took a step right in between Sarah and I. He. Literally. Wanted. To. Sit. In. The. Middle....of US! I absolutely couldn't believe what had just occurred. Immediately, upon sitting, let it be noted that I actually tried to flee the scene, but was given a withering look from Sarah so I begrudgingly returned to my seat. The man-child instantly introduced himself, “Hi! My name is Jimmy Love. (Aaaaannnd…I’m ready to call B.S. that that is his real name. No way. Unreal.) I work at a print shop on West 11th, and I volunteer my time at an animal shelter. Here, look, I made this hat today (he rips off his hat to show us the front) See? It says ‘peace ninja.’” (That would have been helpful if I did not know how to read, I don’t know how he would have gotten the impression that Sarah, nor I, knew how to read, but anyway there we were.) He goes on, “You know, because I’m a ninja…for peace.” Great. Next up, he tells us how he has some camo hats that he printed 541 on the front. He predicted, “They are gonna be huge. They’re really going to take off.” I assured him, I’d keep my eye out.
Later, after the game, Sarah and I headed off to get on the shuttle. The shuttles to and from Matt Arena are typical yellow school buses. The man in front of us, apparently, had a really big problem with this. His major complaint was that it is unsafe for people to be standing in the middle when they have no handles to hang onto. From the minute we got seated behind him, he was off and running on this topic. Clearly, he was agitated. His diatribe did not cease when the bus began filling up, either. In fact, it got worse. Much, much worse. He went on to say, these buses were just a lawsuit waiting to happen. Just wait, watch what happens when one of these buses crashes. Finally, the woman who was standing in the aisle next to him, says, “Would you just quit?” He adamantly says he will not and that he can say whatever he wants. She gives him a surly look, and says, “Enough!” in that disgusted, mothering tone. Of course, he is relentless, and now he is really getting geared up. He goes on to wave his hand in front of his face, and starts commenting on the bad smell that is now enveloping him (yes, he’s alluding to the fact that this woman had some sort of heinous body odor). So what does this woman do? She hauls off and slaps across the head! Again, could not believe what just occurred. The man states, “Well that was rude!” And she argues, “It was rude for you to say that I smell!” Unfortunately, the bus hadn’t even pulled out of the Matt Arena parking area. It was going to be a LONG ride home. And, it was. The man made sure to snap a few identifying photographs of this woman with his iphone, unbeknownst to her. Awkward. I seriously think he may have tried to pursue assault charges. I don’t know if it was Sarah, or me, that had the crazy energy that was drawing these incidents towards us. It was wholly bizarre!
Then, wouldn’t you know it, at Lewis Black last week, more crazies. Of course. Turns out two men had seats right next to us. Typically, I’d be stoked, but one of these men started the conversation that night with, “Evenin!” That’s a dead giveaway that dude has no swag. One of the men, was sort of a bigger guy and he apparently needed a lot of room. I felt I was a superbly good sport for letting his leg basically rest against mine all night. Awk-ward. During the first act, he falls asleep AND he falls asleep again during Lewis Black! I’m thinking, does this man have a mild form of narcolepsy? Surely, if I’m awake and kickin’ I would expect everyone else in the world would be the same. So, the show comes to a close and it’s clear that Black isn’t coming out to any sort of addendum to his show, so the theatre starts clearing. Excuse me, the theatre starts clearing out everywhere except in our row. Literally, the entire upper balcony was cleared out, save for the two men to the left of us and the three really-old-people-who-didn’t-crack-a-smile-the-entire- show to the right of us. Sarah and I were completely trapped. I’m looking at her, as if to say, what do we do? Climb over the seats? This is bizarre. I’m guessing the old people were waiting for us to move so that they could get out, but these guys were just not moving next to us. Creepy, a bit? Yeah, I think so. Finally, Sarah whispers, “movement, I see movement.” Whew. So, we get up and these men are clearly loitering trying to get our attention, which we aren’t giving to them, so randomly, the man that was sitting next to me hollers (literally) “Karaoke at The Old Pad!” I fought every urge to say, “Um, sir, you fell asleep twice in that hilarious performance. I think you should probably hit the hay.” These men, continued to try to walk near us, and we continued to try to avoid them. It was a narrow escape, but we managed.
This blog is getting ridiculously long. I am going to have to start wrapping things up, or else no one will ever read this again. I’ll talk about one more topic, and I’ll finish the rest tomorrow. Believe me, they can wait.
I’ve recently acquired a new roommate. I think most people knew this was coming, but Randy Denson (aw, Ame’s li’l bro) has moved in with me. I’m not even kidding when I say he has probably the best energy I’ve ever been around. I don’t think I’ve stopped laughing since he moved in. He is hysterical. Between him and his friends, I am constantly entertained. The first day I came home, he had dried my laundry and ran the dishwasher AND emptied it. WHOA! When I walked in, he right away, said, I put your laundry on your bed, oh, and can you show me where these dishes go? I wasn’t so sure. I was blown away. Yeah, I can show you! What a novel idea…to learn where things go in the kitchen! I was thoroughly impressed. Then, we attempted to make our first meal together, which went really well, despite that we almost burned the apartment down. I forgot to turn the fan on above the stove and when we started cooking the steaks on the grill pan the entire apartment literally filled with smoke. The smoke alarm sounded and Randy got the ever so important job of standing below the smoke alarm waving a towel to keep it from sounding over and over. We could go stand on our front porch and look toward the sliding glass door in the kitchen and just see smoke billowing out of the kitchen. So far, Randy has at least tried everything I cook, which is very kind. I will probably never forget the moment Randy came home from the store and gave me the low down on what he bought. “Oh yeah, and I got some oatmeal for breakfast, but you’ll have to show me how to make it.” Tonight, I said I was thinking of making breakfast for dinner, and he said, “Do you know how to make eggs like that?” and pointed to the packaging on one of my grill pans. “Over easy?” I asked. Yeah! Yes, I know how. So, he excitedly says, “Count me in!” I just laugh and laugh. Oh and don’t forget about the time, his friend used my towel last weekend. I just thought this the strangest, yet, hilarious thing. Some of his friends crashed here Saturday night and when I woke up to go into the bathroom the next morning I noticed all these water droplets on the floor. I thought oh, someone must have taken a shower, so when I came out I looked at Randy and clearly he hadn’t showered. Once again, I went into the bathroom to investigate and found my towel was sopping wet. That’s strange, so I said, Randy, did you use my towel? He was like, you know I did not use your towel. And, I just started busting up. Randy was laughing at his friend…the culprit. Super funny. Welp, that towel went right into the wash.
Today’s List: Topics to write about tomorrow:
1. Students
2. General frustrations
3. Water aerobics
4. Misc.
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